Hiding Behind the Baggage

Jesus said to him (a blind man), “What do you want me to do for you?” Mark 10:51a ESV

One man there (at the pool of Bethesda) had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and realized that he had spent a long time in this condition, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.” John 5:5-7 ESV

So they asked the LORD, “Where is he?” And the LORD replied, “He is hiding among the baggage.” 1 Samuel 10:22 NLT

Have you ever been so comfortable that you just didn’t want to move? Though the ankle-deep lawn or the pile of unwashed laundry was calling your name, you just couldn’t bring yourself to budge. Too comfortable.  On the flip side, sometimes our desire not to budge, isn’t created by something good like a comfy chair, but from something known, even if painful or bad. “I may not like this, it may be hurtful, but at least I know what to expect. I feel safe here,” is the mantra of comfort-zone thinking.

I have been there. Wasting decades hiding behind the baggage of my past, with its built-in excuses – past hurts, past mistakes, past trials. It wasn’t good, but it’s what I knew. It felt “comfortable.”  Maybe you’ve been there too.

In today’s passages we read of folks, just like you and me, hiding behind the baggage of their lives in the prison cell of comfort-zone thinking and living. To pull the cover off their hiding place, the Lord probes with some seemingly strange questions. Asking a man born blind, “What do you want Me to do for you?” or a man who has been paralyzed for 38 long years, “Do you want to be made well?” It’s here where I am tempted to think the Lord isn’t being very perceptive, but of course, that is never the case. He knows that a life-time of learning to live and think a certain way, of relating to the world around them as “less-than,” would need to be tackled. Jesus knew that even when it’s a bad situation, familiarity can be strangely “comfortable.” When confronted with the seemingly silly question, rather than jump at the chance for healing, the paralytic offered explanations as to why he couldn’t be healed. Perhaps he just couldn’t live with another disappointment or perhaps he had taken healing off his list of life’s possibilities. Whatever the reason, Jesus put His divine finger on the heart of the issue.

Pain and trials are almost constant companions, but never enemies. They drive me into His sovereign arms.

Kay Arthur

Would you stop a moment and think honestly and deeply? Are there areas of your life that need healing or that you know are baggage you’ve learned to hide behind?  While I have no idea what baggage life may have handed you or what “lessons” you may need to unlearn, He does. And He asks the same question, “Do you want to be healed?” If you’re like me, you’ll have to resist the urge to “explain” rather than simply answer Him. “Yes, Lord! I’m ready, heal me.”

Oh Father, Yes, I want healed! Please enable me to live baggage free, no hiding, no excuses. Healed and whole by Your grace and by the power of Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ matchless name, Amen.

Written by Becky White for the Lord Jesus.

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